Features up to 2.75" of ground clearance and 2lbs of payload!
Upgrade to HS-422 servos for $36.00!

The base kit, H2-KT, includes the body and leg panels, the hardware, 12 Hitec HS-300 servos and the assembly manual. With the addition of the serial servo controller, SSC-12, a Next Step Microcontroller, NS-01, a BS2-E module, BS2E-01, a serial LCD display, SLM-01, and the included BS2-E program, Hexagression, a full featured control system can be implemented. The program utilizes the LCD display and two buttons on the Next Step micro to create an effective user interface. From this simple user interface you can select which behaviour or routine the robot will be controlled by without the need to connect a host PC. The base "rover" routine utilizes the IRPD for a no-contact obstacle avoidance behaviour. The gait is an efficient alternating tripod that is good for carpet or small risers. From the base "rover" routine several specialized gaits are already configured for you.

• Standard Rover, walks with a conservative gait, good for carpet.
• Skating Rover, walks with a very fast shuffle, good for tile floors.
• Tall Grass Rover, walks with an aggressive lift on the legs.
• Genghis Rover, emulates the MIT Genghis gait (under development)
• Mantis / Spider, poses as a praying mantis and a spider.
• Edit Properties. allows the lift, stride and delay to be adjusted.
• Remote Control, interprets signals from standard RC equipment for total RC.
• Other walking gaits and behaviors are under development.

Hexagression currently uses about 55% of the available BS2-E memory, so there is plenty of room for development of your robotic experiments.

Purchasing Components Separately
The Hexapod II can be assembled to utilize many different microcontrollers and sensors. If you want to incorporate your own servos, 12 standard size servos required, then the part number is H2-NS, and the cost is $215.00. This kit includes the routed body and leg panels, the mechanical hardware and the assembly manual. The basic kit, H2-KT, includes all of these items and 12 Hitec HS-300 servos. With these components you can build a robot, but it still requires some electronics to make the thing move. We now have a 12 channel servo controller with variable speed designed specifically for the Heaxpod 2. With the servo controller the robot can stand with all of the servos held in a neutral, mid-position, waiting for positioning commands from a main computer. These instructions can come from a PC via a tethered connection, or an RF modem, however for complete autonomy an on-board microcontroller must be used. A First Step / BS1 has enough program room to instruct the robot to walk forward only. The Next Step / BS2 has enough program space to instruct the robot to walk forward, turn left or right and walk backwards, while running an Infrared Proximity Detector. The Next Step / BS2-E is capable of some pretty amazing things as discussed above. There are many other microcontrollers that are capable of controlling the robot equipped with the two SSCs. In fact, any micro capable of sending 9600 baud serial data can move this walking mobile base.

A bit of history. The design of the Hexapod II was inspired by Servo-Bot originally designed by Dave Braun to assist his studies at Indiana University. Dave was a great help during my construction and testing of the original prototype of this robot and certainly deserves credit for a great concept.